Intense negotiations are underway in Qatar aimed at extending the truce between Israel and Hamas that’s due to expire on Thursday.
The initial four-day truce began on Friday and was extended another two days. Despite reports of minor clashes, the pause in fighting has held relatively well, and the two sides have continued to exchange prisoners.
According to Al Jazeera, the current negotiations being mediated by Qatar are focused on how long the truce will be extended and how many hostages and prisoners will be released. The temporary ceasefire will likely be extended for another few days, but a lasting deal is not expected as Israel continues to vow to continue its military operations.
“After this phase of returning our abductees is exhausted, will Israel return to fighting? So my answer is an unequivocal yes,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday. “There is no way we are not going back to fighting until the end.” Previous reports have said the longest Israel is willing to pause the war is 10 days.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is headed to the region and told reporters in Brussels that he wants the truce to be extended. “Looking at the next couple of days, we’ll be focused on doing what we can to extend the pause so we can continue to get more hostages out and more humanitarian assistance in,” he said.
Hamas officials have said they are looking for a deal to release Israeli men and military personnel. The exchanges so far have involved Hamas releasing women and children and Israel freeing mainly Palestinian women and children or people who were detained as minors.
“Now this point is on the table,” a member of Hamas’s political bureau told Al Jazeera. “For the whole of captives, either military or civilians. We’re still discussing it with the mediators in order to reach a satisfying compromise.”
It will take generations for Israel’s reputation in the world to recover from this demonstration of unrestrained savagery — if recovery is even possible.
When people show you who they are . . . believe it.
I disagree. I agree with Norman Finkelstein’s assessment, that it will be forgotten. He askes if anyone remembers Cast Lead or Protective Edge. Nothing will be done. No brought before the Hague. Nothing. It will be forgotten.
Listen to this interview of Professor Finkelstein by Chris Hedges. It is long, but a vital interview.
Cast Lead and Protective Edge were nothing like this and, although well-covered, received nothing like the around-the-world blanket coverage we’ve seen over the past two months.
More when I’ve had a chance to listen to Finkelstein.
Edit: That interview is from October 18th, before much of the horror that has subsequently ensued could have been known and at a moment when much of the world was simply in shock over the initial Hamas attack and didn’t yet comprehend the unrestrained savagery of the Israeli response. Finkelstein is indeed and expert on the history and an analyst whose views should be taken seriously, but predictions made then were made before the world had a chance to appreciate what has actually been happening.
I suspect Finkelstein is right anyway.
How many people around the world really remember the ethnic cleansing of the Tigris/Euphrates marshlands, with the killing of 200k Iraqi Shia, in 1991?
How many people around the world saw the ethnic cleansing of the Marsh Arabs in near-real-time horror shows day after day for months?
No cease fire? Well, Nets has said that it (genocide/ethnic cleansing) isn’t over yet. We will feed the Zionist enough weapons and money to get it done.
We can always be counted on to supply unlimited means for lethality to our friends, for as long as it takes 😉
Seven More Days…!
“fighting until the end”
Well, that certainly worked out well for us in Vietnam and Afghanistan.